Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(35)

“It’s not paranoia if you’re right.”

“Let me get this straight.” I sit back in my chair, pushing my glasses up my nose so I can see him better. “Your theory is that Michael Maddox has targeted me . . . for career advancement?”

Cam lifts a shoulder and goes back to shoveling food into his mouth.

“You could make Mother Teresa go on a multistate killing spree, you know that?”

“You give the best compliments, darlin’. Get yourself a plate before I finish all this food.”

“I’m not eating.”

A wolf’s growl fills the kitchen.

“Be quiet, White Fang. You’ll frighten the neighbors.”

“Did you eat today?” he demands, inflating in that Wolverine way he has.

“Yes.”

He glares at me. “Besides the protein drink I gave you this mornin’?”

I purse my lips and inspect my cuticles.

Cursing under his breath, Cam shoves his chair back from the table and stomps over to my cupboards. I let him bang around for a few moments before telling him the plates are in the cupboard above the coffee maker.

More stomping, more banging, some aggravated huffing. It’s as if I’ve got a wildebeest roaming around in my kitchen. Then he’s at the stove, spooning pasta onto a plate with more force than necessary. He adds garlic bread and salad and sets the plate on the table in front of me with a clatter.

He points at it. “Eat. Now.”

I smile sweetly at him. “I don’t have a fork.”

Nostrils flared, he stares down at me. “You’re pushin’ your luck, woman.”

“Unlike some people in this kitchen, I’m not a big fan of eating with my fingers.”

The look of anger on his face is perversely satisfying. He spins away, stalks over to the drawers, and starts to pull them out one by one, searching for the utensils. I watch him, still smiling.

“If I’d known it sets you off when people skip meals, I’d have gone on a hunger strike the moment I met you.”

Cam comes back with a fork in his meaty fist. He holds it out to me, his eyes burning. “It’s not the meal skippin’,” he says, his voice rough. “It’s the reason behind it.”

Our gazes hold for a moment. Then I decide it’s not worth the argument and take the fork from his hand.

He settles into his chair and glares at me until I relent and take a bite of pasta. Mollified, he goes back to shoveling food into his mouth but keeps a wary eye trained on me while he eats. I have a feeling he’ll try to force-feed me like a goose being groomed for a fatty liver if I don’t keep up a brisk pace, so I’m careful to look busy.

“Pushin’ your food around with your fork and takin’ spider bites doesn’t count as eating,” Cam says after a minute.

“Okay, Dad,” I mutter, and take a normal forkful of food. I chew, swallow, then stick out my tongue, opening my mouth wide to prove to the Mountain that I’m a good girl and he can stop badgering me.

“Better. Do it again.”

I sigh, roll my eyes, and eat more. I’m starving, so my willpower crumbles pretty fast. In a second, I’m plowing through rigatoni like someone’s holding a gun to my head.

Cam grunts in approval.

I hate myself for liking that grunt.

“Speakin’ of your father,” he says casually, looking now at his plate, “what’s his deal?”

“My dad? Oh, he’s a photographer. I mean he was. He’s retired now.”

“Yeah? What kind of pictures did he take?”

“He did some work for the movie studios, but his bread and butter was fashion photography. Modeling shoots, magazine spreads, that kind of thing.”

“So he worked with a lot of models.”

I nod, chewing garlic bread like a farm animal. “And actors. ‘The beautiful people,’ he called them.”

“And your mum?”

“She was a runway model. They met on a shoot in Paris, actually. Now she mostly gets colonics and obsesses over finding the perfect macrobiotic lettuce on her daily trips to the farmers market.”

Cam is quiet for a moment. “And your sister’s a beauty queen.”

“Yup, Jacqueline made it all the way to the Miss America pageant. Got beat out by a farm girl from Kansas. I don’t think she’s ever recovered. Her and my mom are practically identical twins—your classic leggy California blonde type. My dad, too. He looks like a surfer—very tan and fit.” I chuckle. “My sister used to tease me when we were kids that I was adopted, because I look nothing like anyone in the family.”

Cam looks up from his plate. His eyes are dark, and his face is serious. “That explains a lot.”

I pause with my fork halfway to my mouth. “What are you talking about?”

“Your negative body image, damaged self-esteem, and conflicted relationship with food.”

I slowly lower my fork to my plate, my face burning hot and my stomach twisting. “Excuse me?”

Cam says, “You’ve got a model mother, a beauty queen sister, and a father surrounded by perfect-lookin’ people his entire career—”

“You’re in no position to criticize my family or psychoanalyze me,” I interrupt stiffly, my heart pounding hard inside my chest. “And let’s not forget, you’re pretty taken by your own looks, too, McGregor.”